Sister Rose
by Mead1836
Summary: The Gods of Remnant are not who they say they are. Granted a small boon by their estranged father, they must use this and whatever else they can take to challenge Salem, a problem they created but that has grown beyond their power to rectify alone.
1. Chapter 1

Sister Rose

Pilot

"Father, please," Eleven begged.

"Enough," Father's voice resounded through their souls, "I have told you before. I am too busy to bother with your little witch problem. You got yourselves into this mess; you fix it."

"She is too powerful for us to kill!" Two interjected. "Only you can touch her now!"

"And I am busy holding off four separate Gods while I am dying on top of this glorified gold-plated porta-can. Fix your own problems for once."

"Father!" they both cried.

"Ugh. Sigh. Fine. Take whatever this is and do with it as you please," he said, tossing some Warp stuff at his lost sons. "Now go and leave Papa in peace while he tries to fix your brother's little temper tantrum."

"Father, please, at least grant us some of our gene sons," Two pleaded. He got no response. The golden light in front of them did not change from its regular pulsation, keeping time with the beat of humanity's collective heart.

"It's no use," Eleven lamented, "he's ignoring us again."

"Then we'll get no more from him today. We should return for now."

With that, the two brothers fled the Warp, back to the world to which Leman's Wolf Priests had banished them.

* * *

Karis was a verdant agri-world, the land covered by farms and pastures, and the oceans dotted with fisheries and algae farms. Was, as Cora found out when they made planetfall. It was now nothing more than a heap of sand and dust, its water stolen by the invading Chaos forces and its land scorched by Imperial retribution. Although the Imperial Navy had crushed the ramshackle cultist fleet, the planet was still overrun by Chaos forces. Sisters of the Order of the Argent Shroud were spearheading the reclamation effort, and the Order of the Healing Heart, a minor Hospitaller Order, were coming in behind them to care for the wounded. Cora was a junior member of the Healing Heart, only recently promoted to Sister Hospitaller, assigned to nurse duty at Mobile Imperial Surgical Hospital 111, only a few kilometers behind the frontlines.

Cora was walking among the Triage Priority Ones, collecting tags from the deceased and offering painkillers and prayers to those still living. Priority One was for those wounded so badly that only faith could heal them. Cora had long since stopped noticing the odors of death and decay that permeated Priority One, and so carried a small censer with her as protection. Smoke wafted lazily from its inside, purifying the air around it of any stray corruption that might be there. It was not expected that the wounded here would suffer from corruption, Sisters that had been exposed to Nurgle were sent to a different MISH, staffed by the Order's most skilled and faithful healers. It was that group that Cora wished to join eventually.

Nearby, a Sister cried out. Cora rushed to her, painkiller ready, but the Sister stopped her. Her body was frail, destroyed in an ambush that wiped out her squad, yet she gripped Cora's arm with the strength of an Astartes.

"The Emperor speaks to me," she croaked, "he says that we must kill them all. That we must make these traitors pay for their sins!"

Cora realized that the Sister was using her for support, trying to climb out of bed and get back on her feet. Cora knelt beside her bed, and slowly worked her arm out of the Sister's grasp.

"And we will," she comforted the dying Sister, "but for now you must lay back and rest to regain your strength. Once you have done that, we will make the heretics pay in blood and fire." Cora eased the Sister back down into her bed and sprayed her a few times with the painkilling spray. The Sister let out a shaking breath and expired, her strength to live gone.

"Holy Emperor, guide thy faithful servant to the foot of your Throne, so that she may rest in your embrace until your Resurrection and the final triumph of humanity. Ita fiat, esto," Cora murmured over her as she closed her eyes. Then, with routine efficiency, Cora collected the dog tags from around the Sister's neck, recorded her name on her clipboard, and resumed her rounds.

Many hours, and even more similar encounters later, she was relieved from nursing duty for the day. After going through decontamination and washing up, she headed over to the mess tent for a quick meal. It was Guard rations, loathesome stuff that made her stomach turn. She forced herself to eat it anyways, knowing she needed to eat to keep her strength up, and that to let her strength falter would be heresy. After eating, she returned to the pre-fab barracks she was assigned to and got ready for a shower.

The barracks were not much, but they were nicer than those afforded to frontline troops. Each barrack housed a single squad, and the barracks for support personnel were built so that each squad member had only a single roommate. The rooms were small, barely enough space for the single bunkbed in each, and the bathroom was shared between the whole squad, but it was a luxury cottage on a paradise world compared to the larger barracks used by the Battle Sisters.

Cora's roommate was not there, so she went to the disinfecting closet and pulled out a set of sleepwear. She crinkled her nose at the stench; the closet's intense UV lights killed off any bacteria in the clothes, but they did nothing for the smell. It would be at least another two weeks until her squad got rotated back to where they could properly clean their clothes with actual water and perfumed soap. She briefly considered climbing up to take a nap in her bunk, but decided a shower was more important. On her way to the showers she passed through the barrack's common area, where five of her squad mates were playing cards.

"Hey Rose, want to join us?" one called out.

Cora shook her head. "Not tonight Vandergist. I'm ready to sleep early tonight."

Vandergist laughed. "Yeah, this work can be pretty rough."

Cora entered the bathroom and claimed an empty shower stall. It had a small dressing area, curtained off from the rest of the bathroom and the shower deeper in. She placed her sleepwear on one part of the stall's narrow bench and dropped the clothes she was currently wearing on the other. As soon as she stepped into the shower, lukewarm water sprayed from the shower head.

'_At least the showers have soap,'_ Cora thought, squirting some from the built-in dispenser onto her hand. She lathered up as quickly as she could, hoping to beat the shower's automated time limit. She was only halfway through rinsing off when the water cut off and was replaced by the hot air dryer. Her hair, cropped short due to battlefield conditions, blew around her face for a bit before settling down as the dryers cut off. Water was a precious resource here on Karis, so it must be preserved.

Completely dry, she stepped out and put on her plain white sleepwear. She scooped up her civvies and brought them with her to the sink, where she could drybrush her teeth clean. Using a small allotment of water to rinse out her mouth, Cora finished up and went back to her room. Her roommate still was not there, so she dumped her day clothes into the UV closet and flopped down on the bottom bunk.

'_I hope she gets here soon,'_ Cora thought as she rubbed her neck, _'it'll be nice to have someone help me work off some of this stress.'_

* * *

The next day, Cora's squad was assigned to guard duty. The fourteen of them were arrayed in front of the armory, dressed in full battle gear. Most of the girls grumbled and complained: they were medics, not soldiers. Drugs and scalpels were their weapons of choice, not bolters and swords. Cora didn't mind the weapons too much, she was the squad's special weapons girl, so she carried a flamer instead of the Godwin-De'az bolters the others had. Cora was squatting on the ground beside the pathway, her back to the sun. Karis was not a hot planet, it was merely dry. However, the sun did still burn with prolonged exposure, so Cora squatted so that her Hospitaller headdress shaded her head and neck.

A shadow approached her from behind. "Want a drink?" it asked.

Cora shook her head. "I got my own, Aimy," she said, reaching for her canteen. Cora stood up to drink and took a quick swig of water before capping it and reattaching the canteen to her magbelt.

"That better be water Cors," Degoll said.

Cora nodded. "Of course it is. I'm not stupid."

"Just making sure." Degoll said as she stretched herself. Cora heard bones pop as she did. "Gonna have a lot of stress to work off."

Cora smiled and breathed deeply as she remembered how they worked out each other's stress last night.

'_Ozone.'_

The word cut through all thought in Cora's mind. "Hey Aimy, you smell that?"

"No?" Degoll sniffed the air. "Wait, yeah, I do. Almost smells like a thunderstorm."

Cora looked up. Clouds were starting to circle overhead and were rapidly thickening. "Looks like one too," Cora added.

"How?" Vandergist asked.

"What do you mean how?" Cora snarked, "Never seen a thunderstorm before?"

"No, how are there clouds? All the water on this planet is gone." That was when they noticed the ice starting to form on the ground around them.

'_Smell of ozone, rapidly dropping temperature, unnatural weather,' _the realization of their situation clicked in all three girls at once.

"Emperor's saggy ballsack," Degoll cursed under her breath. Louder, she said, "Seventy-sixth squad, form up on me!" The girls rushed to do as Degoll commanded, congregating around her and bringing bolters to the ready. Degoll unholstered her bolt pistol and drew her chainsword. The smell of ozone was stronger now, and ice crystals were growing up past their ankles now. "The Emperor protects!" Sister Superior Degoll shouted as the first enemies began teleporting in.

Cora ran beside Yvytte Vandergist as they made their way through the armory. They were the last two survivors of Aimala Degoll's squad. Degoll had been one of the first to go down, snatched up by a mutant's filthy tentacles as the opening shots were fired. She had dropped her chainsword as she was lifted away, which Cora had promptly picked up. She was glad she had, since it had saved her three times now after her flamer ran dry. They had quickly retreated inside the armory, hoping to find a fortified position there. They hoped in vain, as the heretics began warping in inside the armory as well. Still, the narrow confines of the building and twisting tunnels gave them an advantage as they raced towards the main chamber. Most of the heretics they encountered were cultists, armed with autoguns and clad in rags. They cut through them quickly and terribly, leaving none alive. They even encountered a few squads of traitor guard. Even losing Treau to a well-placed headshot, they pushed through. The slaughter only really began when they turned a corner and found themselves downrange of a traitor autocannon team. Kwera, Cassandora, Yriel, and Joulli were dead before they managed to silence the gun. One by one they fell, until only Cora and Yvytte remained. Vandergist turned a corner, right into a hail of bolt fire.

"Bluefor! Bluefor!" she cried. The fire ceased and Cora turned the corner too. Down the hall, at the entry to the main armory chamber, a squad of Argent Shroud Retributors had set up.

"Hurry! Get to the inner chamber!" the Sister Superior shouted. Neither Cora nor Yvytte needed to be told twice. As they ran past, the Retributors resumed firing. Offering up prayers of thanks, the two Hospitallers collapsed by a row of bolters. The Sister Superior approached them.

"Arm yourselves with whatever weapon you can use. Quickly now, we have a long fight ahead of us." The Superior's voice was gentle but firm, urging them to do right without forcing them. Cora nodded, and pulled herself up. She cast aside her spent flamer, having carried the useless weight with her out of habit. Holding Degoll's chainsword, she went further back into the armory.

Sweeping past rows of weapons, she found a rack of hand flamers. _'Hand flamers!'_ Cora thought, _'sacred weapons wielded by the Seraphim!'_ She could not resist their lure, and took one, along with several spare fuel-cannisters. In another row she found a thunder hammer but decided against taking it. Thunder hammers were big and unwieldy, and she was unsure that she could use it effectively. Last, she went over to where the grenades were stored. As she grabbed a frag grenade, a loud clash of metal sounded behind her. Spinning, Cora turned to see the cause.

An air vent had fallen from the ceiling, and a cultist was slithering out. It was a disgusting mutant; it's left arm splitting into a triad of tentacles. The symbol of Slaanesh on its head burned Cora's mind as she looked at it. More cultists were falling out of the vent to join it. Knowing she could not take them all, she reached behind her for a grenade, primed it, and pitched it at the first heretic's head. She could hear bone crack as the vortex grenade connected with its head.

'_Vortex grenade?! What in the Emperor's blazing beard is that doing here?!'_ was all she had time to think before the vortex opened, and they were all sucked into the Warp.

* * *

Cora came too under a red forest canopy. She sprang to her feet and quickly found the five cultists that had been caught in the vortex with her. They were not handling the transit as well as she was.

'_Serves the heretics right. The Emperor protects his faithful through all trials while their masters desert them in their own realm!'_

Taking her hand flamer in her left hand, she sprayed them with an auto-hitting stream of burning promethium. They screamed as the holy hire immolated them, turning all their heresies into ash. The smell of burning promethium wafted sweetly to her. She savored the scent. As the heretics burned, Cora evaluated her situation. Equipment from the armory was laying around, wrecked shelving for the most part, but on the other side of the cultists Cora could see parts of two power axes and an intact thunder hammer. Behind and beside her were the grenades as well, some split open by the edge of the vortex. All of this was in a forest that looked as if it was in the peak of autumn. According to what Cora knew, there were no forests on Karis. Even before the invasion, the only trees that had been on the planet were those in the orchards, which had now long been burned away. Cora didn't have a helmet, and so had no comm link to try.

'_It's simple. I'll go to the nearest Imperial installation and find out where I am. From there it should be easy enough to get back.'_ Remembering the state of the MISH as she had been taken out, she quickly added, _'if there's anything left to go back to.'_

The last of the cultists had stopped screaming. Their mangled and charred bodies were spread on the ground, still smoldering, the grass around them smoking. Cora frowned. _'No, no, no. This will not do,' _she thought as she went to move the bodies together. _'These bodies are corrupted. I must cleanse the corruption. Purge the infection. Cauterize the wound. Such is the duty of a healer.'_ Though she did not wear anything to protect against the corruption that might come from handling Chaotic corpses, it did not matter. Her faith would protect her.

After moving the bodies together, Cora gathered underbrush from around the area and piled it on top of them. Then, she emptied the remaining promethium in her flamer onto the bodies and lit them up.

* * *

Ozpin was in his office enjoying a cup of coffee when the forest-fire alarms for Forever Fall started blaring. Mildly irritated at the alarm, Ozpin pulled up a camera view of the area that was burning. Instead of the blazing trees and underbrush he expected to see, he saw a girl dragging burned corpses into a square formation. Irritation turned to curiosity as he watched her build a pyre on top of them. Watching the blaze go up on the camera screen, he keyed the intercom button.

"Glynda, prepare two of the student teams. We have a disturbance in Forever Fall. Alert fire control as well."

* * *

Rose collected the broken power axes from the ground. Their power systems were intact, but they were useless without their cutting blades. Still, it would be heretical to leave them on the ground. Once returned to the Mechanicus they could hopefully be salvaged and repaired.

While she was sifting through the grenades, all frags, she heard a noise behind her. Turning, she saw a large dark form in the shape of a bear, bone carapace covering its back and head. It growled at her, menacingly. Cora wanted to hit it with her flamer, but it was out of range. She decided to spend a command point to use the Point Blank Overwatch stratagem when it charged. In the meantime, she readied Degoll's chainsword, now hers, she reminded herself, for the upcoming fight.

The bear charged and took the brunt of her flamer on its head. She kept pouring flame onto it until it reached melee range, when she became preoccupied with dodging its claws. The bear-thing would have landed two wounds on her, but her armor held. It was now marked by two sets of raking claws, mere scratches that did not compromise its integrity. Swinging back with her chainsword, she scored two wounds on the bear, her third swing bouncing off the creature's thick armor. The wounds did not bleed, revealing only a solid red inside that gave off thin wisps of black smoke.

"Daemon!" she cried, "Go back to the Warp from whence you came!" She hit it again with the spray of her hand flamer, causing it to real back. The daemon had nothing to shoot with, so Cora was free the continue to Fight, swinging her chainsword thrice. Only two hit, but her hits wounded it and slipped past the armor. That was enough to banish it, and it fell back, dissipating into smoke.

Panting heavily, she surveyed her surroundings. The fire from the pyre had spread during her fight, and new fires had sprung up from her use of the flame weapon. She quickly gathered what frags she could, as well as the thunder hammer, and took off opposite of the fire.

Only to be intercepted by a lander before she had taken a dozen steps. The assault doors dropped, revealing ten people inside, though there was certainly room for more. Raising her hand flamer, she called out.

* * *

"Identify yourselves!" the white and green glad woman demanded. She wore white armor, with a green skirt and nun's headdress. Her left hand held a pistol of some sort, pointed at them, while her right carried a bulky, toothy sword. She had other armaments on her, as well as a satchel clearly marked with a red rod wound by a snake.

Ozpin spoke. "I am Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy. This here is my secretary, Ms. Goodwitch, and these others are some of my students. Now, please, come aboard, so that we may exchange questions in a more comfortable setting."

The girl hesitated a moment. She seemed to be processing her situation.

"Want us to go grab her?" Cardin asked, lazily swinging his mace, "should be no problem for my Team." Weiss rolled her eyes. Cardin was so full of himself. He took a step down the ramp, stopping when the girl shifted her aim to sit directly on him.

"If you touch me, you will die," she stated. Ozpin waved Cardin back.

"No Cardin, I think it would be best if our guest came aboard willingly."

The girl hesitated a few more seconds before lowering her pistol. She held it by her hip, ready to fire if necessary, and came forward. She did not holster it until she had taken a seat in the bullhead, and even then kept her sword out. Weiss crinkled her nose. The girl stank, not too badly, but it was noticeable. She smelled of gas and sweat, like Yang after a weekend of tinkering on her bike without a shower. Ozpin was the only one who spoke to her, and they rode back to Beacon in quiet conversation as fire-control bullheads roared past to drop water on the fire she had started.

* * *

"So, who are you?" the gray-haired man, who called himself Ozpin, asked as he sat down across from her.

"I am Sister Cora Rose, a Hospitaller of the Order of the Healing Heart."

Ozpin blinked. His face was unreadable. "And tell me, what are you doing here?"

Cora hesitated a moment. She was unsure how she should answer. She didn't even know where "here" was.

"I don't know. I'm not even sure where we are." There was no change in the older man's face.

"Really now? Well, right now, we are flying over Forever Fall Forest, in the Kingdom of Vale. But how did you get here, without knowing where we are?"

The names Ozpin spoke meant nothing to her. "I am assigned to Mobile Imperial Surgical Hospital Eleventy-One, in the Karis warzone. We were attacked by heretic forces and I detonated a vortex grenade after being surround by the scum. I awoke in the forest there, surrounded by hostile contacts, so I took appropriate measures to ensure the sanctity of the area." A long pause.

"Is this a joke?" the man asked flatly.

Cora was surprised. She knew the bit about the vortex grenade probably seemed a bit out there, but everything else seemed reasonable to her. It certainly did not strike her as the kind of statement that would warrant an accusation of foolery, much less against a Sister such as herself.

"What reason do I have to joke about this? I must return to my unit and desire to do so with all possible haste."

"Well, you were caught murdering-"

"purifying"

"-killing, multiple people. We cannot verify that they were armed, because of the fire you started. You're looking at five counts of manslaughter at best, possibly murder, as well arson charges. You could get in a lot of trouble if this ever went to trial."

"And why should it go to trial?" Cora scoffed. "Any disciplinary issues will be handled by my Order, or a higher authority."

"And why should it not go to trial? I am unaware of any such Order that you have named, and I am aware of a great many things."

Seeing the glint in Ozpin's eyes, Cora did not doubt he told the truth. "Because it is not in your jurisdiction-"

"It happened in Vale; it is our jurisdiction."

"Involving a member of the Emperor's most holy Church performing her sacred duty to purge heretics and purify the unclean. It is the jurisdiction of either the Adepta Sororitas, the Ecclesiarchy, or, Emperor forbid, the Inquisition," she gave the last word added weight. It did not have any effect on the man.

"Why should your religious organization trump civil law?" he asked.

Cora goggled at him. That he could even think such a thing, let alone say it out loud, to a member of the Adepta Sororitas no less, was indicative of something deeply wrong here.

'_They're all heretics!'_ she immediately thought. _'No,'_ said her more rational part, _'I've seen no sign of corruption here. More likely uncontacted humans. Emperor only knows how many there are out there in the galaxy.'_

"Tell me," Cora said, "do you know of the God-Emperor of Mankind?"

* * *

Hey! I wanted to try my hand at some fan fiction again, and I just had this story idea. This is just a pilot episode to see how you guys like it, so please tell me how you feel about it even if its not positive!


	2. Chapter 2

Sister Rose

By Mead

Introductions

Cora Rose exited the elevator to Ozpin's office, exhausted. She had spent almost half a day with the Headmaster and his secretary, engaged in a mutual not-quite-an-interrogation. During the questioning, she had revealed what she deemed necessary to protect herself while concealing what she did for the same reason. She had also learned a number of important facts about the world she was on. The most important of which was that even cislunar space was denied to them. Their tech simply could not handle the void of space, and all attempts to breach it had ended in disaster.

There were also the matters of faith and psykery. Of course, not having space travel, these Humans were heathen, unknowing of the light of the God-Emperor. They lived on this planet with what the Headmaster considered a native xenos race, the Faunus, but by his description of them, they were more akin to abhumans in Cora's mind, like the Ratlings or accursed Felinids. In some places these abhumans were given the same legal protections as true humans, in other places not, and in most places they were, at least informally, second class citizens. Cora was unsure what to think of them. Being abhumans, of course they did not deserve the same status as the rest of humanity, but to treat them too poorly might lead them into heresy and rebellion. Debased as they were, they were still human after all, and so deserved some place at the Emperor's table.

However, what simultaneously amazed and irritated Cora the most was that every single life, human, abhuman, and animal, were all psykers, Yet, it had been so for millennia, and the planet still stood in realspace, uncorrupted and untainted. Not even a single daemonic incursion in the planet's entire history, something that even the most favored of the Archenemy's worlds could not claim. The mark of the psyker is the gate to Chaos, and yet here, that gate had remained closed for trillions of souls over the course of thousands of years. It was certainly something that merited investigation.

Cora was shaken from her thoughts by an intruding voice. Looking about, she saw it was the small, black haired girl who was on the ship earlier.

"What do you want?" Cora asked. Her voice was harder than she meant for it to be, and she could see the girl cringe away at its sharpness. Cora shook her head to bring herself to full alertness. "Sorry," she said, her voice kind again, "it has been a long day for me, and not just by count of hours."

"Ah, that's okay!" the girl said, cheery now that she knew Cora wasn't mad at her, "we all get a bit irritable sometimes! Like Coco, if she doesn't get her coffee in the morning, you can hear her three lectures over!"

Cora examined the girl. Her hair was black as Our Martyred Lady armor, and faded to a deep scarlet color at the tips. Cora's own hair was almost exactly the opposite, barely qualifying as yellow it was so light. Their eyes, however, were not entirely dissimilar. The girl had eyes of Leadbelcher, while Cora's own were closer to Grey Knights Steel. The girl was young too, younger than Cora in her estimation. Fourteen to sixteen is the range where she put her.

"Ah! That's right, I'm supposed to show you to your dorm!" the girl realized, "follow me!" she yelled and took off with an inhuman burst of speed. Cora calmly followed her out and to the dormitory buildings.

"My name's Ruby by the way. Ruby Rose, leader of Team RWBY," she said as Cora caught up with her. She had stopped in the middle of a courtyard while she waited for the slower girl to catch up.

Cora nodded her head in acknowledgement. "Mine is Cora Rose," she said simply. The girl, Ruby, turned to look at Cora as they walked.

"Must have some pretty red hair under that headdress then," Ruby commented.

Cora shook her head. "Actually, I'm a blonde. It's so light though that it's almost white."

"So you're a white rose, like my mom."

"I suppose you could say that."

They walked together in silence for a few minutes as they came up on the dormitories. Inside, Ruby led her to the elevators and resumed their conversations.

"So, where are you from, Cora?"

Cora considered the question. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she finally answered.

"Psssh, come one, we have students from all over the world here. Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, I'm sure there's even some from Menagerie. You could be from any one of those places and it'd be believable."

None of the places named meant anything to Cora. "I'm not from any of those places," she said.

"Awww, are you at least from Sanus?"

"No."

"Anima?"

"No."

"Mantle?"

"No."

"C'mon, you have to be from somewhere, it's not like you're from space or something."

Cora gave Ruby a flat stare.

"Oh my god you're from space." There was a pause before Ruby exploded in excitement. "That's so cool! Are you an alien? What kind of super cool weapons do you have? Is that your skin or something?"

Cora put up a hand to silence the girl. "I am not an alien, though I understand your confusion. I am fully human, I assure you, but I come from a much more advanced civilization than yours."

"That's cool! What amazing tech have you got? Do you have like laser guns that go 'pew pew pew' or energy swords that can cut through anything and go 'vwoosh vroom woosh?'"

"Uh, no. Lasguns are rather weak and make a sound more like a snapping tree branch. We do have much faster elevators though. What floor are we on?"

The excitement drained from Ruby's face. "Uh, we're still on the, uh, ground floor. I may have forgotten to press the button."

Cora buried her face in her hands and felt the elevator start to move. When the door opened, Ruby led her down a hallway and stopped a few doors down from the elevator.

"This is the room you're assigned. It's unoccupied for now, and it comes with bathroom and showers ensuite."

Cora nodded. "That's good. I could use a shower. My clothes could use a wash too, is there some place I can do that?"

Ruby nodded. "Laundry room is just down the hall and around the corner. Can't miss it."

"Thanks," Cora said, "warzone conditions on a desert world are not the kindest for the nose." Ruby chuckled, sympathetic but not truly understanding. She handed her the key to the room.

"Well, its yours for now. Hope you enjoy!" she said.

Cora put the key in the lock and turned, opening the door. "Thanks," she said again. "One last thing, when's breakfast?"

"Between seven and ten, depending on classes. Feel free to drop by the cafeteria at anytime if you want to eat though," she said with a smile.

Cora nodded. "I will," she said and crossed the threshold into her room.

Cora evaluated her room. It was large, much larger than the convent cells she was used to. It was built for four people, after all. Immediately selecting the right most bed, she began removing her armor and stacking it to care for after her shower. Sororitas armor, being smaller and lighter than Astartes armor, was significantly easier to remove alone. Then she removed her habit, worn under the armor and folded it, ready to be cleaned. She added the apron from her armor to the pile and immediately moved to the bathrooms. It did not come with soap, and she did not have any of her own, but she showered anyways. She would have to acquire some later. In the shower, she let the warm water run over her as she analyzed her current situation.

'_So, I'm stranded on a strange world with little hope of even contacting the Imperium. Also, the world is full of psykers, so it could get swallowed into the Warp at any time. Although, that hasn't happened in the past few millennia, so I doubt it will happen now. What do I do about this?'_

She had no answer for that question. She thought over it until she got out of the shower and as she put her armor back on with nothing underneath as so she could clean her only set of clothes. That was another problem she would have to remedy. Once her clothes were cleaned and dried, she returned to her room and removed her armor for the last time. She prayed over it and cleaned it as best she could with what was available; it would be a very long time before a techpriest could minister to it again. She prayed that the machine spirits wouldn't mind too much. Climbing into bed, she prayed to the Emperor for protection and guidance, and fell asleep.

She was awake at precisely oh-six-hundred the next morning. She had no toothbrush with her, so she settled for rinsing her mouth out several times. She needed to take inventory and make a list of required goods. She pulled on her habit, connection ports for her power armor poking through holes cut in the garment, and set to work. She had two broken power axes, which she stacked reverently by her bed, a thunder hammer, which she also stuck by her bed, a chainsword, a hand flammer with a few canisters of fuel, and a dozen or so frag grenades. She also had her armor and a single habit, meant to be worn underneath the armor.

'_And my faith,'_ she added. _'I shall always have my faith.'_

Compiling a mental list of equipment she needed, she donned her armor; it would be indecent of her to wear only the habit. Leaving her room, she found her way to the cafeteria in hopes of finding breakfast. They had not been open for long when she got there, so the place was relatively quiet. Surprisingly, she noted the Headmaster Ozpin standing beside the great elevator doors. He signaled her over and she went to him.

"Miss Rose," he began, "seeing no solution to your marooning, I have decided to enroll you for classes here for the time being. However, as you are a late arrival, you will not have a Team, as of yet." He handed her a stack of plastic cards, clear glass device, and a folded set of clothes. "As you are foreign here, I assume you will have no currency accepted on this world. That is a stack of lien, about one hundred thousand. That device there is a scroll, a type of communication and entertainment device. And lastly, your school uniform, required for all classes. You might want to put it on now, if you have no other clothing."

"Thank you," Cora said, specifically refusing to use honorifics. Carrying the stack of items, she decided to return to her room and change. After taking a moment to examine and revel at the luxurious quality of the fabric in her uniform, she returned to the cafeteria, lien and scroll in her skirt pockets. Waiting in the cafeteria line, she heard voices coming behind her. She turned disinterestedly to observe their sources.

"But Weiss," Ruby complained with a loud yawn, "why do we have to be up so early?"

"It's not early, you're just lazy!" the white-haired girl, Weiss, retorted.

"That's not how you felt last semester," a blonde said. Cora briefly debated whether "blonde" or "Imperial Fists Yellow" was the better descriptor.

"Quiet you!" Weiss said.

Cora turned her attention back to the line in front of her. She had almost made it to the food when she overheard Weiss trying to talk quietly.

"I don't recognize that girl in front of us, is she from one of the other academies? No, she can't be, she's wearing a Beacon uniform." Cora turned around to face her.

"Oh, hi Cora!" Ruby said.

"Wait, you're that weird girl from the forest!" Weiss said at the same time.

The line moved forwards.

"If you say so, yes," Cora replied.

"Where'd you get that uniform? Are you going to be going to school with us now?" Ruby asked, rather excitedly.

The line moved again

"Yes, actually. Your Headmaster decide to enroll me here, and, as I have nothing else I can do, I shall attend classes here." Cora picked up a tray and moved it along the line, selecting food as she went.

"That's cool, do you have a Team yet?"

Cora shook her head. "No. As I am a late transfer, I currently do not have a Team."

"That might cause some problems later," the dark-haired girl commented.

"That's no problem! She'll always be welcome to _yang_ with us," Yellow said. In response, she got groans from the three other girls.

"Yang!" Ruby loudly complained.

Cora made it out of the line and followed the girls to a table in the corner.

"Aw c'mon, I think that was pretty good," Yang said.

"Trust me, it was not," Black said.

They sat down at a table next to another group of four students.

"Hey guys, who's the new friend?" an orange-haired girl asked.

"She's-" Weiss began to respond, "-oh, Ruby, you dolt! We never introduced ourselves!"

"That's on you Weiss, I introduced myself to her last night."

"That's alright, she can introduce herself to us all at once," a crimson-haired girl said.

"Maybe we should go first," Yang said, "don't want to put too much pressure on her."

Cora shrugged, "If you say so."

"Alright! As I said last night, I'm Ruby Rose-"

"-and I'm Weiss Schnee-"

"-Blake Belladonna-"

"-Yang Xiao Long-"

"-Jaune Arc-"

"Nora Valkyrie!"

"-Phyrra Nikos-"

"-and I am Lie Ren-"

"Nice to meet you all. My name is Cora Rose."

"No relation," Ruby added.

They continued introductions as they ate, the eight other people asking so many questions of Cora it felt more like an amateur interrogation. Amateur, of course, because she knew what a real interrogation was like, on both the receiving and giving ends. That was part of every Hospitaller's training.

After breakfast, Cora left with Team RWBY. They still had a few days before the next semester began, so they were going to spend the day shopping. Cora had been planning to go out and buy supplies anyways, so they invited her along with them.

In the town of Vale itself, Cora marveled at the luxuries abundant on Remnant. Jewels, entertainment devices, velvets and silks, non-human leather, and denim, all in blues, purples, and golds, were on display for anyone to look at and buy. Back on Miagi, the world on which her order was based, only the richest of the common born and nobility could afford such things.

"You mean that this is all for the scum?" Cora asked in surprise.

"Yes," Weiss answered.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Yang asked simultaneously. Ruby and Blake threw sideways glances at Weiss.

"Ah, sorry. What do you call the common people who live in cities but aren't the rich burghers and merchants?"

Each girl had their own answer.

"Normies."

"Scum."

"Middle class?"

"Normal people."

This time, Yang joined Ruby and Blake in casting looks at Weiss. "It was a joke!" she protested.

"Wouldn't know that from how your company treats its workers," Blake muttered.

"Oh no! We are not starting this again!" Ruby cried. Cora stood there looking at them warily, completely uniformed of RWBY's team dynamic or happenings previous to her arrival. Blake dropped the subject.

"Anyways, we should start shopping! Don't worry about the price, if you can't afford it, I'll pay," Weiss offered.

"I don't think it will come to that. Ozpin gave me quite a lot of money," Cora said as they went towards their first stop.

* * *

"Why is everything so expensive?" Cora cried, carrying two large bags of clothes as they left their fifth store that day.

"I mean, some these stores are kind of higher end, but they weren't that expensive," Yang said.

"More than two thousand for a two-pack of tights!"

"That's actually pretty normal," Ruby said.

"Yeah, were do you live that that's expensive?" Yang asked.

"Somewhere money has more value," Cora pouted, before moving on to the next store. The spent the rest of the day shopping, returning to Beacon to share dinner with Team JNPR after dropping their loot off in their dorms. Before eating, she prayed for the souls of her sisters, and a tear welled up in her eye. She wiped it away before anyone else noticed.

"So Cora, what's your weapon?" Ruby asked sometime into dinner.

Cora stopped with a morsel of food half-way to her mouth. "Eh, what?"

"Little sis wants to know what kind of weapon you use," Yang explained, "she's pretty into all that kind of stuff."

Cora nodded and stuffed the bit of food into her mouth. Unsure of exactly how much she should tell, she said, "I have a hand flamer and a chainsword."

"Whoa," Ruby said, eyes wide with awe, "I have no idea what those are but they sound cool."

Weiss did a face palm while the others chuckled.

"Hopefully we'll get a chance to see you use them in class," Blake said.

Cora nodded. _'In class? I suppose there would be sparring times, but a flamer doesn't have a stun setting, and even turned off a chainsword is quite deadly. I don't think-'_ and then she remembered that these children were all psykers protected by an invisible shield of force around them, their "aura," as they called it. Cora hoped she would not be called on in class to spar as she had no such protection, nor would she want it, if it would mean becoming a psyker.

As dinner continued the conversation naturally drifted away from her and towards the lives of the assembled Teams. Cora listened keenly to them talk, absorbing all that she could about them from their conversation and making guesses based off what she heard. The conversation was going strong long after their food had finished.

Eventually, the talking slowed and faltered. Blake had retired to the dorm a while ago, and now Yang was trying to get Ruby off to bed.

"But Yang! I'm not even tired!"

"Ruby, it is past your bed time! You need to sleep!"

"We're at Beacon! We don't have bed times!"

"You still need to go to bed at a reasonable hour."

"School doesn't even start up again until next week! Pyrrha, help me out here!"

"I'm afraid Yang is right, Ruby. Sleep is important if you want to become a Huntress."

"How could you betray me like this? Cora, save me!"

Cora thought for a moment. "Sorry Ruby, I agree with them on this one. But, I can show you my weapons as a consolation."

Ruby clearly wanted to say no, but the prospect of seeing strange new weapons was too great for her.

"Alright," Ruby conceded.

The two girls stood up. 'Before they left, Cora added, "I hope you all are going to bed soon too. After all, it wouldn't be fair to expect Ruby to be asleep by a certain time without holding yourselves to those same standards."

Pyrrha nodded as if it was the most logical thing in the world, but Yang made a pouting face instead. Cora didn't notice either, as she had already turned away to walk with Ruby back to the dorms.

As soon as they were out of the cafeteria, Ruby exploded into a ball of energy. Cora had to stop and put her hand on Ruby's face to get her to slow down.

"One question at a time," Cora stated forcefully.

"Okay," Ruby agreed, slowing down. They started to walk again. "Where exactly are you from? The other day you only said space, but-"

Cora held up a hand to cut Ruby off. "I am a Sister Hospitaller of the Order of the Healing Heart. Since I was ten I have lived at the convent on Miagi, where I was trained in medicine. It is a very beautiful world, verdant and mountainous, but it is most beautiful when the cherry blossoms bloom and paint the sky with their petals."

Ruby nodded. "Haven Academy is full of sakura trees, and I hear it is very pretty when they bloom."

Cora blinked. "I," she struggled, "did not expect that you would have those here. This is a strange world."

"Why wouldn't we have them?"

"The sakura is an ancient Terran food cultivar. How it would have gotten here without the Imperium is a mystery."

Ruby shrugged. "You'd have to ask someone who knows about botany for that."

"Yes, I suppose so," Cora said.

Ruby seemed as though she wanted to ask more questions, but she remained quiet as they approached the central fountain.

Four people were hanging out around the fountain. They were all four males, and each wore some form of armor, though for one it was only a spiked shoulder pad. They seemed familiar to Cora, more so than anyone else Cora had seen on campus so far. As they approached the fountain, the four boys took notice of them and moved to block their path. Now that they were closer, Cora could tell they were the boys from the airship that had picked her up.

"Hey, its that weird girl from the forest," the biggest of them said. He was tall, a head taller than the other boys, and so towered even more so over Cora and Ruby. He seemed to be well built as well, but any definition he had was lost beneath his armor and clothing. His voice was very pleasant too, but it all came together in a way that screamed "weasel," and "snake" to Cora.

"What about it?" Cora answered, completely unflustered by the boy's attempt to get in her face.

"You were pretty rude when we picked you up in that forest. I think you should apologize," the boy said, crossing his arms. The other three boys nodded along and added their own comments, like slimy henchmen for their hair-trigger boss.

"I don't even know who you are."

That really seemed to anger the boy. "Why you, I'll show you who I am!" he declared and reached to grab Cora. Cora read him easily and ducked just enough for him to miss and followed through by stepping into the boy's guard and grabbing him firmly between the legs. The three boys started to move to help their leader, but Cora squeezed tighter until he called them off.

Ignoring the boy's whimpers, Cora said, "Do not try to touch me ever again. If you think you're hurting now, you should see what I can do with honey and rope." After a moment of confusion, the boy's face filled with horror. "Understand me?"

The boy swallowed and nodded.

"Good. Now let us pass," Cora said before letting go of the larger boy. He stumbled back, caressing his bruised manhood. Cora led Ruby past him, ignoring the three boys as they rushed to their leader.

"useless little shits," they could hear the larger boy berate the others as they walked away.

After a moment of silence, Ruby asked, "what were you going to do with honey and rope?"

Cora shrugged. "Dunno. Probably nothing as bad as whatever he thought of," Cora explained.

It took a moment's though before Ruby spoke again. "Wait, that was-"

"a bluff? Yeah, something you learn as a Hospitaller. We're not just some of the best healers in the Imperium, we also frequently gather information from prisoners."

"So, torture?"

Cora nodded. "Anatomy, genetics, drugs, they're all tools of the Hospitaller. We simply employ them however is needed to safeguard Mankind from the horrors of the galaxy."

Ruby glanced sideways at Cora. She seemed less sure of her now, as though the revelation of the Hospitaller's duty was darker than she had expected.

"I have many questions, but now I am unsure if I want the answers."

Cora snorted. "So say us all, Ruby. So say us all."

* * *

"So much for going to bed soon," Yang snarked as Ruby tried to quietly open their door.

"Aww, Yang!" Ruby complained.

"She's right though, Weiss added, "you're back surprisingly late. What were you too doing this whole time?"

Ruby fully entered the dorm room and shut the door behind her before answering. Yang was at the desk, leaning back in the chair while the other two girls were on their beds. "She let me see her weapons and explained how they work, then she told me more about herself and where she comes from."

"Oh? Where's she from?" Yang asked, completely ignoring the weapons.

"Is she another ex-Fang member?" Weiss added. A glare from Blake drew out a "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way!" from Weiss.

"Nah, even weirder," Ruby said, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Oh?" the three others asked in unison.

"Yeah, she's-" Ruby paused. "Actually, you should probably ask her yourselves. She could explain it better than I can."

The other three girls shrugged, then Yang got up and turned out the lights.


End file.
